Damnation
by Freedan the Eternal
Summary: A prologue to the original Doom, as the hero experiences the moment that destroyed his military career, and his stationing to the Mars base to be forgotten, to the events leading to being stranded on Phobos, alone and barely armed, surrounded by cannibal zombies, carnivorous demons, and evil spirits.


**Damnation**

A fan story based on Id Software's _Doom_

Written by Freedan

A result of me discovering the Doomsday Engine and marathoning the old Doom series. Maybe I'll do more than a prologue if there's enough interest. Or if I just decide I want to do it anyway.

**Prologue**

We'd all seen it coming. It was no surprise to anyone, except maybe those high-ranking politicians who see nothing but their own bank accounts. The Earth was dying, slowly but surely. The atmosphere was clogged with centuries worth of exhaust fumes, and mankind barely even saw the sun anymore. And if we did, you didn't dare walk in it without your protective suit and mask. The ozone layer had long since been destroyed, and deadly UV rays would seal your fate quickly enough. Drinking water was worth its weight in gold, and most of the world's natural water sources were filled with so many toxins, an immediate and excruciatingly painful death after drinking from them would be preferable to the cancer and other sicknesses they could cause.

The governments of the world had, at long last, taken note of the problems, and found the only solution feasible: Mars. The combined world space programs began preparation for the five-year flight to Mars, and had feet on the ground less than thirty years ago. Colonization then began in earnest. Larger ships, with many more people and supplies, were sent after, and upon arrival at the red planet, began construction of a new, completely self-sustained city on the surface of Mars. It was a triumph of engineering, water and waste recycling designs would allow it to survive even if contact with Earth was broken. There was even talk of some form of wide-scale terraforming, and that one day, the planet might even have a breathable atmosphere.

The beacon of hope rapidly became one of despair for the people on Earth. It was simply impossible to send everyone who wanted to go. The Mars colony simply could not support a massive influx of refugees trying to escape the hellish Earth. Immigration requirements became more and more strict, and soon the majority of mankind fell onto the rejection list. The only people the Mars colony would accept were scientists, engineers, and more specific positions, though they did always allow them to bring their families.

The call for scientists was caused by the discovery of structures on Mars' moons, Phobos and Deimos. Technically, it's top secret, but people sure as hell are talking about it. Laboratory bases were set up with this influx to study the buildings. Yeah, apparently they're not a misread like the face of Mars back in the twentieth, but honest to god brick and metal buildings, left there by aliens long ago. They were establishing labs on both moons, near the structures, to study them and most likely figure out how to weaponize any alien technology they found.

It was about then I realized I would never be able to get my family to Mars. I'm a soldier. Marines, to be specific. There isn't a lot of call for someone of my skill-set on the colony. Even if I left the marines, became a policeman or something, it wouldn't get me up there any faster. My wife is, or rather, was a lawyer. There's not a lot of call for her knowledge even on Earth anymore. Only thing that matters is Mars to the governments, and most criminals don't even see trial. Mary's not had a case in years, not since martial law was activated.

That's why it wouldn't do any good to be a policeman now anyway. I'm already doing that job. No real danger of a war right now, since every other country is in the same position, using their militaries to control the populace. See, it started with a protest a few years ago, about the restrictions on new colony ship passengers. A fair number of irate folks who wanted onto one of the ships stormed the spaceport. The ship never lifted off, because shots were fired, and an explosion damaged part of the launch frame, causing the whole ship to lay over on its side, tearing down walls as it fell and destroying a good portion of the structure.

Since then, military forces have been deployed to every major city to keep order. Rules are that we're permitted to use any means necessary, short of putting them in the hospital. Also means I'm away from home a lot. Mary says they'll get by, but I've been worried about Tanya, our daughter. With the way things are getting, looters aren't always waiting for dark before breaking into places. Mary knows where the guns are, and which are kept loaded, but I keep thinking I should be there.

I sighed in frustration, looking at their picture. It was a wallet-size that I kept in my pocket. Tanya was sitting on Mary's lap, and Mary had her arms around her, both smiling at me as if they didn't have a care in the world. It was always a good reminder of why I do what I do, though. To protect them, and so many other families across this country.

"Stay alert, soldier," Sergeant Walters said, glancing over at me, "Here they come."

I looked up, tucking the picture back into my pocket as I did so. Yes, here they came. Marching directly up the street toward the capitol building. There were at least fifty men around me, all of us in line, waiting for them. There were concrete barricades about thirty feet in front of us, blocking the road to the capitol.

Every one of us came alert, picking up or un-shouldering our plasma rifles, standing at ready attention. Our orders were to let the people have their protest, but to disperse the crowd if they became violent. Our helmets contained filters that would protect us when we fired the tear gas, allowing us to move into the crowds and give them a reason to leave.

Sergeant Walters lifted his left hand to his ear, blocking out the sound of the shouting protesters as he listened to the comm in his ear. "New orders!" he barked, and drew his sidearm, "If they cross the line of the barricade, we open fire! Is that clear?"

All up and down the line, heads turned. Faces were impossible to read through the helmets, but it was clear I wasn't the only one who didn't like the sound of that. But when no one else spoke up, I had to.

"Sir, we're to fire on unarmed civilians?" I asked.

"That's right," he said, "You got a problem with it, take it up with command when we get back."

The crowd of protestors was coming closer to the barricade. It was clear they had no intention of stopping. I stepped forward, out of the line. "Sir, we can't follow that order!" I said, "It's murder, plain and simple!"

"Shut your mouth and get back in line, marine!" Walters said, "Ready weapons!"

The rest of the line lifted their rifles to their shoulders, taking aim into the crowd who were nearly at the barricade now. I couldn't just let Walters do this. "Sir," I said, "I am begging you to rethink this!"

"That's enough insubordination!" Walters said, and turned his pistol on me, "Get back in line, marine. Now."

"No, sir," I said, and had him. Walters was good, but his age had caught up with him. With my left hand, I caught his wrist, raising his gun high, his shot flying well over my head, and he didn't even have time to react, my right fist coming around and smashing into his jaw with a crushing hook that sent him sprawling.

Then I didn't have time, as six marines from the line were on me, smashing with the butts of their rifles, and I found myself on the ground, my helmet rolling free, and looked up just in time to see one of their boots coming down, and that was the last I knew.

I didn't stop the massacre. The crowd swarmed the barricade, charging toward the line, and the squad had opened fire. Hundred were dead in seconds. Two marines were killed before the crowd dispersed.

I was going to be court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. I knew that. You didn't get away with punching a superior officer. In the end, though, I didn't even get a trial. I was taken home, under guard, and spent a month with Mary and Tanya on house arrest. That at least made it worth it.

After all that time, I thought I was going to get a firing squad when the men in black suits and sunglasses showed up. They took me to the nearby base, and to my shock, I was handed a file. Inside was my new assignment. At first I couldn't believe my luck. I was being reassigned to the Mars Station Tiberius, a military space-station in orbit around the planet. It was a top-secret posting, with a skeleton crew of marines to monitor the Mars colony. A make-work posting if there ever was one.

My hopes were dashed just as fast as they were raised when I was told I could not take Mary and Tanya with me. The colony had no idea the station was even there, and due to its secret nature, even they could not know where I was going. I asked what would happen if I refused, and was told rather flatly that then I would get the firing squad. And the bastard smiled as he asked, "And what would happen to Mary and Little Tanya then?"

They'd get all my pay. I'd have no need for it where I was going. Within the month, I was packed, kissed my wife goodbye, told Tanya I'd be back in no time, a bold-faced lie, and was strapped into a military shuttle, frozen in cryo for the five year trip to Mars.

Within ten minutes of waking up on the station, I knew exactly why I was here. It wasn't in the best of shape, and the other members of the posting were like me, troublemakers that, rather than going through the trouble of being gotten rid of, were used to man this damn tin can to watch the colony and make sure they weren't building any missiles to shoot back at Earth. We were stashed here to be forgotten.

As I thought, it was a make-work kind of job. Most of my duty hours were spent at the monitoring station, watching a mess of screens of satellite imagery of the colony on Mars. Fat lot of good it does watching enclosed domes from orbit. I rapidly grew bored of the weak games on the personal computers, and ended up spending the majority of my time watching X-rated movies.

If I wasn't exercising in the gym to fight off the low-gravity muscle degeneration, or asleep, that's pretty much all I had to do. I was thinking about Mary most of the time, but fantisization can only go so far when your only lover is your hand. Some of the other guys had started... experimenting... Can't say I blame them. They'd been here longer than me and hadn't seen a woman in years. Some almost a decade. Offered to let me join in, but I wasn't that desperate yet.

I did make a friend. Private by the name of Tony Wallace. Met him at the firing range one evening, and moved from there to some hand-to-hand sparring. We talked about what was going on back on Earth. The scattered reports we got said that things were only getting worse since the massacre at the capitol five years ago (seemed like only a few months for me). Doomsayers were on practically every street corner, proclaiming that the end of days had begun. They officially never saw the sun now, and it never even shone through those black clouds enough to break the pitch-black night.

God, I was so worried about Mary and Tanya. I wanted to send a message, try to get something through, but everything had to go through the main terminal, and would be looked over by command. And it wasn't for personal use.

Tony was actually quite the avid chess player. Taught me how, and it at least gave us something to do to kill time, since killing time was about all there was to do. Even came close to beating him a few times.

Six months into my second year on the station, we all got a shock. The lab on Deimos had stopped reporting into the colony. There was no explanation, and no distress call if something had happened. The cameras were angled to Deimos, to try to get a look at the base, when the real shock hit.

The moon was gone. Yeah, not just the base, the entire god damn moon had vanished from the sky. The colony sent up jump-ships to where it should have been, and we watched the whole time while they flew around, and listened in to their transmissions that made it clear they were just as clueless as we were.

It was crazy. I mean, how do you lose a fucking moon?!

This was reported to high command, who seemed just as incredulous, and their only response was to "wait and see."

Tony was convinced they had blown themselves up with some alien technology they had found from those strange structures. Sure, why not? Seems as likely as any other explanation.

But the mystery was never solved, and another year and half on the station had left me as restless as ever. It had been three years since I had been outside these damn metal walls, and the only contact we had with the outside was either high command, or when a shuttle arrived with freeze-dried food supplies from Earth. Seemed awfully expensive to supply such a piss-poor spy satellite, though I was infuriated by the fact if even one of those shuttles didn't make it, for whatever reason, we'd starve.

But at three years, something happened that broke the monotony, and looking back now, I'd almost take the monotony. It had started when a distress signal was picked up. It had been coming from the Phobos lab. A message was sent to high command, and the response was to send a squad to investigate, but remain inconspicuous if we could. Saving scientists from themselves was a good enough cause, I guess.

We suited up and loaded into the troop transport. Fifteen of us were going down. I pulled the hatch shut behind me, and strapped into my seat. Tony was sitting on my right, and I looked over the rest of the group. One thing I could say about these men, none of them were rookies at least.

We felt the transport lift-off, followed by floating up in our seats as we left the station's gravity, held down by the belts.

"Shit, I always throw up in zero-G," someone said.

"Keep your helmet on, then," came a reply, followed by laughter all around.

"Have you got a comm with the lab yet?" Sergeant Johnson, our CO, asked the pilot at the front.

"Negative," the pilot said, "I'm picking up their signal, but no response. Wait... The distress call just went silent."

"That's not good," Tony said, glancing over at me.

"Who the fuck calls for help and then turns it off?" one of the others asked.

"It was likely turned off by whoever is the reason it was turned on," I said, "Maybe someone took over the base."

"So I might get to do some painting after all," said another, fondling the shotgun in his hands.

"We do this by the book, people," Johnson said, "On the ground quiet and fast. Do not fire until fired upon. I don't want dead scientists just because one of you gets trigger happy."

"Dibs on the minigun in the back," someone said.

"You're gonna lug that heavy shit around?"

"Well, some of us aren't made of toothpicks."

"Entering Phobos' gravity now," the pilot said, "Hold onto your lunches."

It did leave me queasy, the feeling of reentering gravity and suddenly being pulled down in my seat as the shuttle leveled off.

"Coming up on the base now," the pilot said, "Landing in two minutes."

"It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum!" one of the marines suddenly shouted, "And I'm all out of bubblegum!"

I groaned, but the general response was a chuckle all around, and one other replied, "Heh, no shit, man."

"Something's wrong all right," the pilot said, "I don't see any movement. No signs of life down there."

After another moment, the pilot warned that were touching down. We all felt the skids hit ground, and immediately dumped the harnesses. I pushed the hatched open and stood back as the others filed past, rifles, shotguns, and the minigun maniac at the ready. I reached to the weapon rack to find it empty. What the hell?

I jumped down from the hatch. "Sergeant, where's my weapon?" I asked.

"The pilot has it," Sergeant Johnson said, turning to moving from the landing pad to the doorway leading into the hanger, "You're staying here."

"What? What did I do?" I asked.

"We need someone to watch the ship, and you're not high on the list of commendations, soldier," Johnson said.

"Oh, that is bullshit!" I said, then added, "...sir. Sir, you can't be serious about this! I'm just as much a marine as any of these men!"

"You're the only one who has a history of defying orders," Johnson said, "I can't trust you, it's as simple as that. Now, stay here."

"Fuck," I cursed under my breath as he turned to join the others.

"Comms on, gentlemen," Johnson said, "We're in hostile territory until we find otherwise."

I climbed back into the shuttle, moving up and sitting down in the pilot's seat, watching the squad through the canopy as they stacked up by the door, and listening to them through the comm in my helmet.

"Okay, go."

The first in line opened the door and second and third moved in, weapons ready, scanning quickly what was beyond.

"Clear!" came the first call.

"Clear!" came the second.

The rest of the squad moved in, for all their previous nonsense, every one of them a finely tuned machine, until the door shut behind them and I could no longer see them.

"Window on the right."

"Hall on the left."

"Window's clear."

"Hall's clear. Dead end."

"Hallway on the right, going into the main hanger."

"Move up."

"Clear."

"Got a body here. Looks like one of the scientists."

"Cause of death?"

"Looks like knife wounds. Lot of 'em. Slashed open."

"Door ahead."

"Stack up."

"Ready."

"Open and clear."

"Opening now.

"Clear."

"Clear... wait, hot!"

A gunshot sounded over the speaker in my ear.

"Aagh!"

"Multiple hostiles!"

"Open fire!"

Gunfire rang from the speaker. My fingers twitched, and I reached to my holstered pistol, and glanced back at the open hatch. No, maybe I should close it, and got up to do so. The gunfire in my ear stopped, and Johnson was checking the casualty.

"Just grazed me, I can keep going."

"Sergeant, you might want to look at this."

"What is it?"

"Look at these guys. Here's our shots. See the fresh blood? Look at all these other wounds. Some of these look hours old. Hell, this guy's missing half his head! No way he should have been up and moving."

"Maybe one of us blew it off."

"Naw, the blood here's all dried. This is an old wound."

"That's fucking crazy, man. He'd have to be dead."

"We're not figuring anything out here," Johnson said, "Keep moving. We need to find someone who can tell us what's going on here."

There were several minutes of moving and "clearing" without any variation, and the team had moved from the hanger to the mess hall building, and then into the main lab, and then a scream suddenly ripped through my ear, along with shouts of "Holy shit!" and "What the fuck _is_ that?"

Gunfire, and I could hear the minigun among it, and shouts of "Kill it!" and then someone shouting "More are coming!"

I sat up in the seat, lifting one hand to the side of my helmet, as if it would help me better make out the garbling shouting among the mess of noise. More screams of pain, and some kind of... low roar? It sounded like an animal.

As the noise started to die down, I could hear one voice, whispering, "Holy shit, holy shit," over and over.

"Tony, what happened?" I asked.

"They're dead," he said, "They're all dead man. Shit, we need to get the fuck out of here! Start the bird up, I'll be there in a minute. Oh, shit, they're following me. They're following me!"

I looked at the myriad of controls in front of me. "I don't know how to fly this thing, man!" I said.

"I can, just start it up and I'll be there," Tony said, "Push the big switch on the left all the way forward, then switch the green-"

He was suddenly cut off by his own scream, distorting the speaker in my ear, which then turned into a gurgle followed by a splattering sound and something like meat hitting the floor. I could hear heavy footsteps by the mic.

"Tony?" I asked, and there was no response, and tried again, "Tony, are you there? Answer me!"

Dead silence.

"Hello? Is anyone still alive?" I asked, "Anyone?"

_Oh, shit_ was all I could think at that moment.

It was futile, yet I spent several more minutes trying to raise Tony, or any other members of the squad. I looked helplessly at the mess of switches and levers in front of me. In a moment of desperation, I switched my comm to an open channel, so that anyone listening could hear it. "Is anyone out there?" I asked, "I have a ship, but is there anyone who can pilot an XV-357 Thunderbird transport? Hello? Is anyone there?"

Nothing but static responded.

I sank back in the seat in despair. I considered just taking my helmet off, let asphyxiation kill me. It sounded better than whatever those marines had just faced.

It was almost a reflex, but I reached for my pocket, and brought out the picture of Mary and Tanya. I looked at it, wrinkled and dogeared as it had become, and I could still see them smiling at me. I stared at it in silence for several minutes.

"No," I said at last, "I'm not giving up here. I _will_ make it home."

I climbed out of the seat and returned the picture to my pocket. I drew my pistol and opened the shuttle hatch, stepping out onto the landing pad. Other than the hanger, I could see several buildings forming the base. Other than the hanger and mess hall, there was the main lab building, a nuclear power plant, the waste recycling facility, and the command center. There had to be survivors somewhere, I told myself. I'd search every building one by one, and failing that, maybe the command center still had working comms, and I could contact the colony on the surface of Mars to send a rescue ship, if they weren't already on their way.

I switched my pistol's safety off and started toward the door leading into the hangar, and whatever horrors awaited me.

**To Be Continued **(maybe)**in**

**Part 1: Knee Deep in the Dead**


End file.
